The Revival of Live TV: Liveness in a Multi-platform Context Introduction Web 2.0 and increases in time-shifted and on-demand content across devices are reshaping the ways in which viewers access, consume and interact with audiovisual content. These multi-platform affordances and changing viewing behaviours impact on the ways that the TV networks produce, schedule, and deliver TV programmes and associated content as has been analysed by scholars both in an American and a British context (see among others Author Removed, 2013, 2014; Jenkins, 2006; Lotz, 2009; Caldwell, 2003, 2006, 2011; Bennett, 2007, 2008, 2011; Bennett and Strange, 2008, 2011; Bennett et al., 2012; Chamberlain, 2011; Doyle, 2011, 2013a, 2013b; Ytreberg, 2009; Steemers, 2004, 2014; Iosifidis et al., 2005). The uptake of internet-enabled portable media platforms and devices – iPhones/smartphones, laptops, PC and iPads/tablets – both complicates and complements these developments. Today, 54% of viewers in the UK watch audiovisual content on a laptop, 49% on a tablet and 39% on a mobile phone at least once a week. In addition, 37% of all Brits, and 57% of 16-24 year olds, habitually 'media mesh' on two or more screens simultaneously, and interact directly with the programmes they watch on one screen, through another device. Viewers for example text/SMS, chat, tweet, social network, or interact direct with audiovisual content on one screen through affiliated sites or apps on another (Ofcom, 2013a: 141). To illustrate this, during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics the BBC recorded 5 million ‘Live’/As it happened’ unique browser views in the UK and 6.5 m globally, and the official BBC hashtag was tweeted over 3.5 million times (data from the BBC Press Office, August 2014). Similarly in 2013, the X Factor series’ live transmissions attracted an average volume of 406,000 tweets per programme; and the 2013 Wimbledon Men's tennis final was watched by 17.3 million people in the UK, whilst a further 1.1 million people worldwide tweeted at least 2.6 million times about the match, and ‘liked’ and posted over 20 million times on Facebook (Kleinman, 2013; Ofcom, 2013a: 33-41 and 150-152). The scale of these new viewing patterns, practices and interactions necessitates a review of how live television is understood, used and strategised by broadcasters. This article examines how the notions of liveness and live TV are being reshaped within this context. Focusing on the BBC and Channel 4, the UK’s two publicly owned TV networks, the article explores how and why these two public service networks are reinventing and promoting liveness and in particular live media events (as defined by Dayan and Katz, 1992: 4-10) across platforms and devices. The article will argue that rather than seeing live television as a phenomenon of the past that has been rendered less relevant in the multi-platform world, the British public service channels are using live TV coverage of major events as a key part of their multi- platform strategy. Indeed, the live broadcasting of media events gives the TV networks a clear competitive edge over the streamed content and VOD services available from online providers such as YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime. The research presented here is based on a series of interviews with multi-platform executives and producers within the BBC and Channel 4, conducted between 2010 and August 2014 as well as viewing data, browser imprints and social media activity, obtained from these broadcasters’ press offices. It also draws on publicly available data and statistics about media use around live events from the British telecommunications regulator Ofcom and PACT, the UK’s trade association for creative content producers, as well as BBC’s and Channel 4’s multi-platform strategies as outlined in their vision statements and annual reports. This data is analysed in relation to the actual coverage of live events on both channels. The focus of this article is the analysis of live events and live TV programmes in the first quarter of 2014, specifically the BBC’s 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Channel 4’s Sochi Winter Paralympics and Live from Space season in February and March 2014 across four screens (TV, laptop/desktop, tablet/iPad and iPhone/smartphone). The live coverage of these events was explored in a series of short case-studies, or netnographies (Kozinets, 2010), which observed and recorded the transmission of live events across multiple screens simultaneously, in real time. There will also be references to other programmes that were advertised and presented as ‘live’, but were not transmitted in real time, as well as other live broadcasts from the summer of 2014. The coverage of live events described here in a British context echoes the delivery of live events in other countries with public service media providers for example Australia, Denmark and Finland. It is important to note here, that ‘liveness’ and ‘live TV’ in this article are defined as the live broadcast of an event that is transmitted to viewers and users in real time as it unfolds1. Liveness on Television Live TV transmissions and the notion of liveness have always been central to the proposition and aesthetics of television (Auslander, 2008: 12-13; Crisell, 2012: 1; Levine, 2008: 394-395; Caughie, 2000: 32; Marriott, 2007). In the 1930s and 1940s, all television programmes – from news to drama – were transmitted live (Auslander, 2008: 15; Caughie, 2000: 30-32). The introduction of recording equipment in the mid 1950s changed the technical capabilities and the aesthetics of television, as well as commissioners’ and schedulers’ ability to commission, plan, and schedule programmes. With this followed a readjustment of the centrality and function of liveness and live TV. Live transmissions remained important and relevant for certain genres, for example the immediacy and currency of news and sports mean that a most of this – 97% and 92% respectively – is watched live to this day (Ofcom, 2013a: 148). The value of live transmissions is also reflected in the rights of its sales value with live being 99% of linear rights (Boyle, 2015: 2). The planning, development and resources involved in the production of other genres, such as entertainment, drama and documentary, meant that it became more efficient to pre-record (sometimes ‘as live’ and sometimes as a film) much of this material. For broadcasters, this ability to record television programmes on film and video tape not only brought about changes in technology and practical production conditions, it also offered new aesthetic possibilities (Caughie, 2000: 32) and created higher levels of precision and quality for some programme genres. It had an economic rationale too. Highlights of sports events could be rerun as part of news programmes; footage from news items could be recycled later in news bulletins or current affairs programmes; and dramas, documentaries and children’s programmes could be retransmitted and sold to other territories. This spread production costs, offered more avenues for profit or recoupment of initial investment but also turned programmes into products (Steemers, 2004: xiv; Iosifidis et al., 2005: 19). Video and AV recorders in the 1980s, DVD and Blu-ray in the 1990s and DVRs, streaming and Video on Demand (VOD) today have all precipitated these trends (Doyle, 2013b: 73-99). The affordances of multi-platform broadcasting and Web 2.0 have further transformed the notion of liveness. In his article ‘Extended Liveness and Eventfulness in Multi-platform Reality Formats’, Espen Ytreberg analyses how European multi-platform reality formats are constructed and designed to allow audiences to interact with and revisit programmes online, and in this way enhance and amplify them as a media events. The dynamics between on and offline as well as on- and off-air interaction extend the perceived liveness of these formats between programmes and their temporal life beyond their on-air transmission (2009). In the UK context and especially in relation to documentary and factual content, James Bennett and Niki Strange have demonstrated how the BBC drives traffic between platforms (in their analysis TV and web) to create 360-degree viewing experiences across platforms and content. This, they argue, not only creates a richer viewing experience but is also used to fulfil public service remits (Strange, 2011; Bennett, 2008). With reference to John T Caldwell’s second shift aesthetics (2003), both see 360 television strategies as ways to orchestrate user-flows between platforms in a post-linear and digital scheduling landscape (Bennett and Strange, 2008, 2011). In feature films and TV drama productions, the producers, distributors and broadcasters seek to monetise associated content across screens beyond the transmission or release of the actual programme or film as described by, among others, Henry Jenkins (2006) and Jonathan Gray (2010). Thus, these shifting technologies as well as the corresponding changing cultural and economic paradigms have changed and modulated how live television has been understood and used by the TV broadcasters at different times throughout their history. In line with this, Philip Auslander argues that liveness on television must be seen in its historical and social context rather than as an ontological condition (2008: xii-xiii). Similarly, although the events they describe pre-date the internet, Dayan and Katz’ excellent definition and analysis of live media events are pertinent to the analysis here. They describe live media events as a genre in itself that celebrates one-off events and fulfils a series of social functions through enacting, performing and affirming narratives of ‘contest, conquest and coronations’ (1992). This article draws on research into both live TV as well as multi-platform programming. It seeks to re-situate and contextualise the notion of liveness and live media events in a mediascape where content on portable devices – laptops, smart phones and tablets – is increasingly consumed at the same time as live TV.